Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Film Review: Devil's Pass (2013)

Led
by psychology student Holly King (Holly Goss), five college students
travel to the Dyatlov Pass to find out what happened to nine skiers who
mysteriously and unexplainably died 50 years prior...

Devil's
Pass starts as a mockumentary that quickly turns into a more
traditional found-footage horror film. The story follows Holly as she
leads Jensen, a pretentious, douchebag film student, Denise, a cardboard
audio engineer, and two expert climbers, J. P. and Andy, to the Dyatlov
Pass. So, they hike up the rough terrain and talk about the incident --
they speculate, joke around, and so on. Nothing really happens for the
first two acts, actually. The story starts to pick up some momentum
during the final act, but it's a mess and feels like a completely
different movie. It loses all sense of identity along with a useless
twist, and throws a plethora of ill-fitted computer graphics to the
audience. The ending even starts to drag on a bit.

Devil's Pass
starts off with some interesting information about the incident early
on. Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough information to fill the first
two acts. Instead, you get to several poor attempts at comedy with every
other line of dialogue attempting to be "witty" -- it's not. The rest of the dialogue is cliché, ripped out of every other
found-footage horror film ever made. Without much story and poorly
written dialogue, you really don't have much of a film for the first
half. Afterward, the film messes with a plethora of ideas and possible
solutions to the "great" mystery -- none of which offer any closure or
impact. In fact, it should've been a documentary considering the film
lacks thrills, scares, entertainment and so on.

On top of being a boring
story, Devil's Pass does nothing to differentiate itself from the other
films in the genre. The obligatory "we've got to record everything"
discussion, for example, is present. And the douchebag cast of
characters are all very familiar. My favorite is the illogical
character, though. I mean, why bring two experts if you're going to
completely ignore their advice? Why move towards the radiation instead
of away? Why open a door that's obviously locked from the outside to
keep something in? Curiosity killed the cat, stupidity killed Holly.
(not a spoiler.) If you're looking for well-developed or even likable
characters, look elsewhere.

The acting is decent for a cast of
unknowns; obviously everyone has to start somewhere, it's just
surprising to see a solid cast of unknowns work so well together -- not
award winning, but worth noting. The special effects are terrible and
overused -- this is a cade where it would've been better to show less,
especially during the final sequence. Renny Harlin's direction is okay,
but he's better than this. The writing is inconsistent and sloppy.

Overall,
Devil's Pass
is a bad found-footage horror film. The concept is
interesting, but the execution is severely flawed. The story is boring,
the final act is lost in itself, the characters are annoying and
illogical, there is a severe lack of horror and suspense, and the visual
effects are bad and unnecessary. Avoid this film, unless your Netflix
list is empty; even then, I can probably recommend some better films on
Netflix you haven't seen. I mean, Devil's Pass? More like Devil's Ass,
right? No? Ok...